250 more jobs to go at Rochdale Council

Up to 750 jobs are now expected to be lost at Rochdale Council as a result of more cost cutting. The news was announced as the council unveiled its latest savings plan which outlines a further £14M of savings the authority plans to shave off next year's budget.

Up to 750 jobs are now expected to be lost at Rochdale Council as a result of more cost cutting.

The news was announced as the council unveiled its latest savings plan which outlines a further £14M of savings the authority plans to shave off next year's budget.

It means an extra 250 jobs on top of the 500 already announced under the two previous savings proposals are expected to be lost. The announcement comes days after the Observer launched a campaign calling on the people of Rochdale to stand up against crippling government spending cuts.

The council is needing to make drastic cuts as a result of a £65m shortfall bosses have been left with following a brutal 20.5 per cent cut in government cash over the next two years.

Council leader Colin Lambert said: "No decisions have been taken on these proposals, but we do want residents to have a look and tell us what they think."

The latest phase of cuts proposes slashing £2.1m from adult care with reductions to the supporting people funding, reducing staff, rationalising floating support and the renegotiating of contracts.

Another £1.4m is to be cut from the finance, legal, people management, performance and transformation, customers and communications departments, leading to the expected loss of more posts and the withdrawal of the prompt payment discount for customers paying their council tax in full by April 10.

Another £1.5m is to be taken from the learners and young people and schools and children's services budget, which will see a reduction in jobs and internal budget reductions.

The budget for environmental management and business partnerships is also to be cut by £1.2m leading to the restructure of environmental management, a reduction of posts in business partnerships, changes to bulky waste collection service and rural waste collection rounds, changes to frequency of the recycled waste collection service and a review of countryside and street services.

And £2m will be cut from planning and regulation, strategic housing, and regeneration resulting in a reduction in the number of posts together with internal budget reductions and increases in income.

Staff are now being briefed on the latest proposals.

The council still hopes most of the job losses from phase three will be achieved by voluntary redundancies.

Coun Lambert said: "Inevitably such a significant reduction in government funding will impact on the services we provide, however, we will continue to do our best to respond to residents' top priorities."

Rochdale's MP has hit out at the government for making the council make such heavy cuts and for refusing to meet local MPs to discuss the problem.

He said: "We now have a situation where the chancellor, George Osborne, refuses to meet Greater Manchester MPs to explain why he's cutting so deep and fast in places like Rochdale while other councils in the home counties are getting off lightly.

"This is a disgrace and shows that these cuts are politically motivated."

Keith Hutson, for the town hall union Unite, said: "Any job losses we will find disappointing from our point of view.

"At the moment there will be consultations and we will be looking to work with the council to mitigate as many job losses as we can and see if we can redeploy staff and avoid compulsory redundancies."

The 'phase three' proposals are to be considered by councillors at Thursday's cabinet meeting.

Public and staff consultation is expected to start from March 1 and will end on May 30.